Nick is a cash game player, content creator and part of 888poker’s Stream Team. Each week he shares his thoughts and experiences as a player dedicated to the daily grind. This week he chases the rush and excitement of opening his first mystery bounty envelope…
After 888’s live circuit for the year came to a close, it was back to the online streets once more this past week. Despite some crushing blows late on in some big spots, I was feeling relatively pleased that I’d at least begun to make some headway with live tournaments.
Having said that, it’s now been quite a while since a deep run in any of the 888 live online series. I know what you’re thinking: if I’ve been struggling both online and live, it means I’m probably just not very good, and largely you’d be right. But every dog has its day, and in the most recent KO Games on 888poker, I was hoping it might be mine.
Bounty hunter
Having completed my brutal $1,000 10NL Challenge just a few months ago, and managing some respectable cashes in live tournaments, there’s just one thing left that’s been bugging me endlessly. Of course I really want to make that live final table, something I will be giving my all to achieve next calendar year, but that’s a fairly lofty ambition given my volume and skillset.
The most pressing concern on my to do list is far more embarrassing, and almost unbelievable given my circumstances. I’ve played every single 888poker online tournament series since the initial release of Mystery Bounty events on the site about two years ago, and played a fair chunk of MTTs in each. Despite this, I was still yet to open a mystery bounty envelope on the site heading into the KO Games. That is, if you exclude a $0.49 bounty I pulled in our weekly $1 community Home Game on Twitch, which I certainly am.
I’ve made multiple Day 2s and reached a fair number of mystery bounty phases, sometimes with a fairly chunky stack, but the envelopes still proved elusive. I’ve lost a fair amount of all-ins with a bounty on the line as well, and it’s become somewhat of a running joke amongst the team that I’ll probably retire before I open one. What does it feel like to pull open an envelope and count the zeroes? For me, for now, that remains a mystery.
Still, every series provides another opportunity to finally peel open that glorious gold envelope, and given my recent form I was hoping it would be my time in the KO Games $300,000 GTD Main Event. While there was a cool $30,000 top bounty, I’d have been happy with literally any envelope at all, and when I made Day 2 once again with a top 20 stack, I felt it was surely my time. Maybe my first bounty could even be a 5-figure haul?
Sitting a few seats from $30,000
First of all, my seat was horrendous. I covered only two players on the table, who were to my left, and there were some gigantic stacks to my right. The only thing worse than my seat was my distribution, as I mucked offsuit 8-gappers for the first hour of play. Every spot that I could have gone for a bounty was taken by the big stacks on my right, and I was forced to sit there and watch everyone open an envelope but me.
There was one ray of light in a 5bb stack that had been at my table since the beginning. It was unlikely that I’d be given a clean chance to go for it, but it was keeping me sane. At this point they were the only stack I covered as we approached the final 50 players from the 191 that started the day. I waited patiently, until finally they decided to wager their remaining stack UTG. I obviously looked down at T-2 offsuit, and bemoaned the lack of justice in the world as three other players took their shot.
What transpired soon afterwards was a 3-way all-in between the short stack and two others, with the short stack in rough shape. Top pair was currently good, but the player with middle pair spiked trips on the river and removed the 5bb stack from contention, and with it his bounty. I was already miffed, but imagine my sheer, unadulterated rage as the player with a speculative middle pair on the flop not only scooped the pot, but slowly peeled back zero after zero in the envelope. $30,000.
I had been sitting on the same table as the top bounty the entire evening, getting dealt nonsense hand after nonsense hand, and the dream was now dead. I still had 30bb and was 25/45 remaining when I got A-K offsuit in 3-way vs my fellow 888 Stream Team member Leo Jokura’s 
and another player’s hopeful K-Q offsuit, and while I wasn’t in line for a bounty as the shortest all-in stack of the three, it was for a near 100bb pot and an almost chip-leading stack.
A running four flush for the K-Q left me out of the tournament for a cash of $465, and, yet again, a grand total of 0 envelopes opened.
Standard.
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Featured image courtesy of 888poker/Gema Cristobal
